Shelter director Jennifer Anderch said the older woman recently lost her home and could not keep the 10-year-old cat, whom she called "Powder."

The shelter has been caring for the cat -- who became a local media sensation this week and was dubbed "Princess Chunk" -- since it was found on Saturday wandering the southern New Jersey suburb of Voorhees.

It also turns out that the princess is a prince. A veterinarian who checked the cat Thursday on "Live with Regis and Kelly" determined it's a "he."

In a week with headlines about presidential politics, suicide bombings in Iraq and big baseball trades, the cat has also captured the nation's attention.

In fact, Anderch has changed her voicemail greeting to identify herself as "Chunk's publicist."

Her instructions, specified in a two-page "mission statement," are that the entire trust, valued at $5 billion to $8 billion and amounting to virtually all her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, according to two people who have seen the document and who described it on condition of anonymity.

It is by no means clear, however, that all the money will go to dogs. Another provision of the mission statement says Mrs. Helmsley's trustees may use their discretion in distributing the money, and some lawyers say the statement may not mean much anyway, given that its directions were not incorporated into Mrs. Helmsley's will or the trust documents.

More than 150 animal shelters now successfully use what are called Canine-ality and Feline-ality assessments to match prospective pet owners with just the right dog or cat. The quizzes have been so successful that euthanasia rates have been cut by 40%. "It really all comes down to matching," says Emily Weiss, an animal behaviorist and the Senior Director of Shelter Behavior Programs for the ASPCA, who devised the assessments when she worked at the Kansas Humane Society. "If I'm looking for a partner, be it a dog or cat or human, there are certain things I'm attracted to and there are things that I really don't want in my life."

Figuring out those "things" is the key. The process starts with potential adopters answering a list of questions regarding their expectations of a pet, ranging from "I want my dog to be playful - Not at All, Somewhat, or Very" to "I am comfortable doing some training with my dog to improve manners such as jumping, stealing food, and pulling on the leash - No, Some, or A Lot of Training."

On the other end, each animal's personality is categorized by shelter workers. The assessment tools include a four-minute hidden camera look at how a dog reacts to finding himself alone near a kitchen counter, bed or couch, with a trash can nearby. If the dog ignores the trash and hops right up on the bed, he's probably a Couch Potato, identified in the following way: "Like the easy life? I'm the perfect match for you, walking very short distances from the couch to the food bowl..." If instead she cruises the counter, she might be a Busy Bee, described as "on a mission to please you and myself..."

Weiss developed the assessments by studying the behavior of dogs on loan from homes to the Kansas Humane Society for 72 hours. Her staff watched the animals and then asked owners which behaviors were typical of the pets at home. The behaviors considered atypical were eliminated, and only lists of behavior categories matching an animal's personality in both stressed and non-stressed situations were included.

Black-and-white mug shots of former pets have begun to appear throughout the city as part of an ad campaign that aims to shed negative stereotypes of sheltered animals.

"Sheltered animals didn't do anything," proclaim the ads, which were announced Monday by Animal Care & Control of New York City, an agency that works to protect pets.

The idea behind the campaign is to stress that sheltered animals are victims of circumstance, not abuse -- and that their only crime is a lack of a home, the agency said in a statement on its Web site.